With friends like Obama Girl …

You don’t hear the term “Internet time” much anymore; probably because we now live in it everyday.

News — and rumors — fly around the world in Internet time. Scandals big and small erupt in Internet time. People rise from obscurity to worldwide (or, at least, Webwide) fame in Internet time.

Of course, those online celebrities also wear out their welcome in Internet time, too. Witness Amber Lee Ettinger, aka Obama Girl. Her original “I’ve Got a Crush … on Obama,” posted last June, made her an unlikely celebrity and gave her candidate a decidedly unconventional boost in the public consciousness. Of course, the senator from Illinois was then just one in a rather crowded field of presidential wannabes and far from a clear-cut front runner. Nine months later, Obama has done so well in Democratic primaries and caucuses that quite a few people think his opponent should just step aside and hand him the nomination. He has a plausible shot at becoming the next president of the United States.

Which means that Obama Girl is now a liability to him. Media Curves ran an interesting experiment to quantify how much she hurts him with her latest video, “Hillary! Stop the Attacks! Love, Obama Girl.” The video was shown to 440 voters who were asked to record how they felt toward Obama — positively or negatively — in real time as they watched. Result: A majority reported being “embarrassed” or “irritated” by the video.

Slate V makes it clear with this video, which superimposes the test audience’s response curves over the actual video, in real time:

The good news from Media Curves: Watching Obama Girl’s antics didn’t really change anybody’s mind about who they’d vote for in November. So, technically, she’s not hurting her cause … but she’s not helping it either.